DALLAS -- Texas' school finance system is flawed but constitutional, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled Friday, a surprising, years-in-the-making blow to 600-plus districts that sued to force the Legislature to pump more cash into classrooms.
The all-Republican court reversed a lower judge's finding that spending on school districts was inadequate and unfairly distributed among wealthy and poor areas because of $5.4 billion in classroom cuts approved by state lawmakers in 2011. The Texas Constitution mandates a fair and efficient system providing a "general diffusion of knowledge."
Legal battles over classroom funding have raged in Texas six times since 1984, but this marks just the second time that justices have found the system constitutional.
"Our Byzantine school funding 'system' is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements," Justice Don Willet wrote in the 9-0 decision that ended the largest court case of its kind in state history.
The justices implored lawmakers to make serious changes, but said "our judicial responsibility is not to second-guess or micromanage Texas education policy."
Texas has a "Robin Hood" school funding system in which wealthy districts share local property tax revenue with those in poorer areas. Schools rely heavily on property taxes because Texas has no state income tax; only California has more public school students than Texas' 5.2 million.
School districts that educated three-quarters of Texas' public school students were on the same side in the case. While those in poor areas said funding was inadequate, districts in well-to-do locales argued that voters often refuse to approve local tax increases because much of the money would go elsewhere.
"It's a huge disappointment," said Rick Gray, who represents more than 400 districts that are mostly in poorer areas. "Anybody who looks at the system knows it's hopelessly broken."
But Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who was attorney general when the case was first filed in 2011, called the outcome "a victory for Texas taxpayers and the Texas Constitution" that "ends years of wasteful litigation." And his successor, Attorney General Ken Paxton, complained that Texas residents "have faced an endless parade of lawsuits following any attempt to finance schools in the state."
The state spent $9,561 per K-12 student in the current school year, the National Education Association said last week. That's more than $2,500 below the national average, and ranks Texas 38th nationwide. Arkansas spent $10,346 per K-12 student in the same period.
In the 2010-11 school year, before the Legislature's $5.4 billion in cuts to education funding and related classroom grant programs, per-pupil spending was only about $1,700 below the national average.
Those 2011 cuts prompted school districts to sue, arguing that they could no longer properly function as Texas' public school enrollment grew by nearly 80,000 students annually. Exacerbating the problems, they argued, was the Legislature's increased demand for student and teacher accountability as measured by standardized test scores and tough curriculum standards. Districts also pointed to the number of students who need costly extra instruction to learn English.
"The 'imperfections' cited by the court in its decision are no small wrinkle," Democratic state Rep. Ana Hernandez, legal counsel to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said Friday in a statement.
District Judge John Dietz, an Austin Democrat, ruled in 2013 that the state's school finance system was unconstitutional.
A Section on 05/14/2016